Russian air raids over Syria have noticeably tapered off in the first 10 days of the New Year to their lowest level since the onset of Moscow’s major intervention in Syria in late September, intelligence sources report. This may be partly due to winter weather conditions, partly for urgent maintenance work, and partly to give the air crews a break for the Russian holiday season.

A convoy of about 100 Syrian army trucks was sighted Monday, Oct. 15, transporting a large consignment of chemical weapons from their big depot at the Al Safira military base east of Aleppo to another facility in the town of Hama, some 160 kilometers to the south, debkafile discloses. This was the first time in the more than two and-a-half years of the Syrian civil war that a large shipment of chemical weapons has been moved out of Al Safira, where also CW-capable Scud missiles are stored.

Thursday night, Aug. 4, the commanders of Syria's military crackdown on the city of Hama ordered suspected protesters to be picked up off the streets for summary execution. Within hours, hundreds of victims were "executed" by firing squad in Nasser Square. The order was issued when the military failed to overcome mounting resistance.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned Syrian President Bashar Assad: "We are watching how the situation is developing. It's changing and our approach is changing as well."

Early Monday Aug. 1, undeterred by international condemnation, President Bashar Assad broadened his bloody tank assault to all of northern Syria – a 20,000 square kilometer area almost the size of Israel. He is now waging war on the 3.5 million inhabitants of Hama, Deir al-Zour, Homs, Idlib, Ar-Raqqah and Abu Kemal, after inflicting a one-day death toll Sunday of 150 – 120 in Hama, 30 in Deir el-Zur and more than 1,000 injured.
Syrian armored forces are running into heavy resistance, increasing desertions.

Since Thursday, July 21, Syria's entire operational fleet of 1,500 tanks surrounds the country's most active anti-Assad protest cities Homs, Hama, Deir al-Zour, Abu Kamal and the big Damascus suburb of Harasta. The same evening, tank-backed forces stormed Homs, shelling densely populated districts at random, causing many casualties.
Five months into the uprising, these flashpoint cities are out of control, barred to the army except in large contingents backed by heavy armor and live fire.

The visits the US and French ambassadors, Robert Ford and Eric Chevalier, paid to Hama Friday, July 8, in the thick of the half-million anti-Assad turnout, offered a rare glimpse of the quest by Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy and Tayyip Erdogan for a Syrian compromise: It would leave Bashar Assad in place provided he accepts reforms and makes room for the opposition in government. But Turkish troops still remain poised on the Syrian border over his head.

Thousands of paramilitary rebels wielding guns and explosives have seized the northwestern Syrian region between the towns of Homs, Hama and Latakiya. Syrian State TV interrupted its broadcasts Monday, June 6, to announce that "terrorist gangs" had killed at least 120 troops and security officers, most of them in the embattled town of Jisr al-Shughour. debkafile reports: Syrian President Bashar Assad has dispatched strategic reserve Brigade 555 and the army's 85th Brigade to regain control of the area.